A study published recently in Lancet magazine has shown that patients suffering from Type II diabetes can go into remission simply by losing weight!

In order to reach this conclusion study author Dr. Roy Taylor, a professor of medicine and metabolism at Newcastle University, took a group of 300 diabetics and randomly assigned a course of treatment: one group would continue their current management plan, including the use of medications and one group would simply be assigned to a weight-management program.

Of the group assigned to the weight management program for a 6-month time period, nearly half of the participants who lost at least 30 pounds went into remission. None of them had taken any medications or used any resource other than weight loss to manage their diabetes during that time period.

Type 2 diabetes is caused by the body’s inability to break down food’s sugars. Normally, pancreas cells work to release insulin, a hormone that can process sugar and either send it to cells that need energy or store it as fat for future energy needs. Cells in the liver are responsible for clearing insulin from the circulation. But excess fat in the pancreas and liver can start to shut down these insulin-producing cells, leading to spikes in blood sugar levels and, over time, the onset of diabetes.

Dr Taylor says: “People newly diagnosed with diabetes for the first time can look at this and know it isn’t necessarily for life. It isn’t an irreversible, inexorable condition that you can never escape from …From the very clear data we produced in this trial, yes, this is a watershed moment for diabetes. We can offer people hope from the start.”